Nuuk International Airport:
Seatbelts fastened & ready for takeoff
Photo – Oscar Scott Carl – Visit Nuuk
Airports, at their core, are about connection. Connection to family, to friends, to opportunities, to discovery, to assistance, to education, to home. And perhaps nowhere in the world is set for such a dramatic change in connectivity as Nuuk, when the city’s 20,000 residents gain a direct link to the outside world for the first time on 28 November 2024.
Until now, Nuuk’s airport, opened in 1979, was severely limited in the types of aircraft it had space to accommodate. But the 950m runway has now been extended to 2,200m, and a brand new terminal building opened earlier this year.
The new airport will allow long-haul flights to land in the city for the first time, and direct routes from Copenhagen and New York City (Newark) are already in the works.
The new airport is going to change how Nuuk connects with the world, and how the world connects with Nuuk. And it will allow thousands of people to connect with us who might have never done so otherwise.
From Greenlandic students in Denmark, to tourists in the USA, to local tourism providers right here in Nuuk – the new airport is going to change everything.
”The tickets were like 2,000kr cheaper for a round-trip than when I went home last year. That's a lot of money for me!
Anouk
Anouk studies in Denmark, where many Greenlandic students go to pursue their education. Justin and Martha first visited Greenland this year, but are already working on a trip for 2025. And Jesper owns Greenland Escape, helping receive visitors in Nuuk.
They’re all watching and waiting for the new airport to open, and we spoke to them to find out exactly what they’re most excited for…
Anouk Holm Jensen was born and raised in Nuuk, but has been living in Aarhus, Denmark’s 2 nd city, for the past three years studying psychology. Though she’s got friends from back in Nuuk who also study with her, she’s got no other close family in town. With another three years left in her study program, she often feels the weight of being far from her loved ones:
“It’s the small moments, I think, that hurt the most. My cousin, who I’m very close to, has a daughter, and I don’t really get to be part of her childhood. Every time I go home, it’s like she’s forgotten me. You have to reconnect with them all over again each time.”
She’d love to go home more often, but budgeting as a student is never easy.
“The one thing that would make it possible, is it being cheaper. That’s the main issue for me, because I can’t afford it more than once a year – I’m a student you know! So it’s hard to afford if I’m paying myself.”
But in addition to helping her keep close to family, Anouk thinks the improved access could also help to build bridges between Greenlanders and Danes.
“Two weeks ago I was in Copenhagen where they launched a report about young people in the realm [Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands] and their opinions and interests about the other countries, and a lot of both Danish and Faroese people had a bit of a negative idea about Greenland, but they also wanted to go there, and requested that we visit each other more. The best way to get to know a culture and to know people, and understand where they’re from, is by meeting them, and by being there.”
Anouk’s friends from Aarhus are definitely interested to pay her a visit, though, and she’s keen to share her culture and show off her Arctic home:
“I’ve talked to some of the people I study with, and they really want to go some day. I said they’re welcome to stay with me. But we also said that we have to finish our education first because otherwise we can’t afford it!”
Justin & Martha Lubliner live in New York City. They first visited Nuuk this summer, arriving on a roundabout route through Reykjavik and Kulusuk. The Greenland bug bit them hard (if you know, you know!), and they’re already planning a trip back. So it’s no surprise they were excited to find out that United Airlines just announced the first-ever Newark to Nuuk route starting in June 2025.
“I had a notes doc open with like nine different ways to get to Nuuk, because there were only flights on certain days, and we only had so many vacation days, and every single option was really expensive, and there was a minute where it was like – can we afford this?”
But they decided to go for it anyway, and Martha spent her birthday in Greenland.
“It was one of my best birthdays –– everyone cared! Everyone in the whole town cared, it was so nice to shake everyone’s hand!” [Greenlanders offer a formal handshake and a hearty pilluarit (‘congratulations’) to the birthday girl/boy, alongside with singing the Greenlandic birthday song]
Since landing back in New York, they’ve been raving about Greenland to their friends, and fielding more than a few questions.
“When we got back, people were like, ‘I didn’t even know you could go there — I thought it was all ice!’ Everybody we’ve talked to about it, we find ourselves talking about it for a half hour, there’s so much to say. And people seem genuinely interested.”
They chalk this up to the fact that Greenland is a bit of a blank spot on most Americans’ mental maps, but the more they find out, the more intrigued they are. “Certain places, certain cities, you kind of know the deal of what to expect. But with Greenland, people just have no concept of it; it’s like you’re going to another planet. They’ll have a context for other places in some ways, like, ‘I know there will be trains, I know there will be cars, I know there will be roads.’ So you can assume certain things about most other places, but you can’t assume the same things about Greenland. Everyone is always shocked to hear that the roads don’t connect the different places in Greenland!”
And so Greenland’s newest goodwill ambassadors are already getting busy with their plans for next summer.
“It’s one of the only places we’ve travelled to that we want to go back to – of course we want to go back to many places, but when we say it for Greenland, we mean it! We are definitely going back to Greenland – to spot whales, camp out in the Nuuk Fjord, and to polka in the midnight sun!”
Jesper Øraker works in tourism reception and destination management services in Nuuk, with his company Greenland Escape. The whole company is gearing up for the big changes in store, and in addition to their charter bus services for tour agents and others in the city, Greenland Escape will soon launch Nuuk’s first airport shuttle service.
“We tried to start it up earlier, but because the volume on the Dash 8’s is so low, and there are so many people that know people [in town] that pick them up, it’s really hit or miss if people needed a ride or not, so it was too expensive running it – there’s just not enough volume. But with the new flights coming in we’re going from receiving 30-something passengers at a time to suddenly receiving 300 into Nuuk at a time.”
But he’s also the first to admit that, as exciting as the new airport development is, no one really knows precisely what to expect:
“Right now we’re guessing on everything from the amount of tickets we’ll sell to the amount of drivers we’ll need to the size of the buses. We’ve made a very detailed plan now, but we’ll probably change it five times after the end of November and before the summer, just trying to figure out how it should work so both the customers are happy and it works for us.”
Jesper sees it as a grand opportunity for the tourism industry in Nuuk, to both raise the standard for visitor experiences and offer more stable employment to local guides.
“As a whole, the goal is to get the company past the critical mass, by existing and doing tours year-round, so we’re not so dependent on a very peaky three months, but we can also keep our employees working year-round. And you can raise the level because you don’t have to start over every summer with new guides and new drivers and new people for your souvenir shop. You can have the same people and you can educate them and work on their skills. As a company it will be easier to invest in our employees when you have a longer timeframe than three months.”
He also hopes the new airport will allow for a diversification of the services and opportunities available to Nuummiut (as residents of Nuuk are known).
“It’s so much more than just the tourists. It’s just a game-changer all around in terms of accessibility and timely logistics for everything from spare parts to the accessibility of fruit and vegetables. And hopefully the added money that’s being brought with the tourists will be a growing base for more restaurants and more experiences and things that the local population can also use and benefit from.”
In addition to bringing the world to Nuuk, the new airport will also bring Nuuk to the world, and Nuummiut are excited to travel – Jesper included.
“It will make the world much more accessible for the local population in Nuuk, so I think we’ll see people traveling more because there’s an expectation that the ticket prices will also go down. I know for myself it will be much easier to go to a wedding in Denmark with friends if it costs 3,000kr for a return ticket instead of 10,000kr.”
”We'll hear more languages spoken in the city.
Jesper
Sean Connolly
Journalist, Visit Nuuk
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